


Zip Me Up Before You Go Go

by teyla



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: British Politics, British Press, Homophobia, Humor, Multi, Swearing, Various ships, Yuletide, but none front and centre, so no ship tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 00:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13042323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teyla/pseuds/teyla
Summary: When theDaily Mailfloats a new story, Malcolm and Jamie know that their duty to stop it goes beyond partisan loyalty.





	Zip Me Up Before You Go Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emmzzi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmzzi/gifts).



> Dear Emmzzi, thank you for prompting this fandom! I love these boys and girls, and had a lot of fun filling your request. I hope it's what you were hoping for.
> 
> I play a bit fast and loose with the series' timeline in this fic. It's technically set sometime around series 3, with Malcolm's party still in government, but I'm using some series 4 characters in their series 4 positions. Oh, and of course Jamie's still around.
> 
> Thanks to my betas neery and daphnie_1!
> 
> Have fun, and happy holidays!

“… don’t fucking care how you’re going to turn this bucket of chunky diarrhoea into Vasquez’ golden fucking treasure, but if you don’t, I’m going to skin you alive with a really blunt fucking nail clipper and use your blood to rewrite it myself. Am I being sufficiently fucking clear?”

Jamie doesn’t hear the response, but the way Malcolm sucks in a breath and gets ready for another volley suggests lack of cooperation. Instead of shouting, though, Malcolm yanks the phone away, stares at it like it farted into his ear canal.

“Hung up.” He looks up, eyes blazing. “This ends here. Fuck _me_. If the _Mail_ runs with this, I’m telling you, I’ll fucking resign. I’ll take half the cabinet with me. Hold me to my word, Jamie. This is _not_ going in the papers.”

Jamie drops his briefcase on his desk. It’s barely gone eight; he’s just in the door. Looks like it’s going to be one of those days. “Where do you want me?”

\------

“There _is_ something. Fucking think. Kick those Oxbridge circuits into gear and produce some fucking results, you twat. There’s always _something_.”

“There’s _nothing_!” Reeder’s backed into a corner. The man always looks like you’re coming for his life when you ask him a simple question, it’s fucking pathetic. “I’m telling you, she’s as clean as—as a pair of loafers after a polish. I’ve got _nothing_ on her.”

“A pair of fucking loafers, listen to you, you massive Eton cunt. That’s what you two used to do all day, is it? Polish some fucking loafers together, oh, yeah, babe, right there, that’s the spot!”

“For Christ’s _sake_.” Reeder makes a face as if he’d just spotted a pair of garden slugs copulating on the Magna Carta. “As much as I know how you like to turn everything into an impromptu porn performance, please don’t do it at me. It’s very unsettling.”

“Is that the fucking problem here? You find sexual intercourse unsettling? Tits and cocks and pubic hair, they disturb your upper crust fucking sensibilities?”

“ _What_?”

“Details.” Jamie pokes a finger into Reeder’s skinny chest. “I need some fucking details about Angela Heaney’s weirdest fucking kinks, so we can bury this story under first-hand accounts of how she likes to put on a furry donkey head and get fucked from behind while neighing at the moon. I could just make it up, but it’s more authentic when my source is legitimate, right?”

Reeder straightens up; it’s like he’s rediscovered his spine. “You really ought to stop projecting your own fantasies on other people, Jamie. The weirdest she ever got was wanting to—you know, do it in the dark. Not exactly two-page spread material, is it?”

Well, that’s fucking disappointing. Jamie snarls. “You fucking tweed-and-elbow-patch-wearing prick. If I were shagging you, I’d want the lights off, too.”

\------

“If I may be so bold, why _exactly_ do you want to keep this story out of the papers?”

Glenn Cullen’s whiny excuse for a voice oozes through the phone and sends a shiver of disgust down Jamie’s spine. Having to talk to Glenn can ruin the best of days, which this most definitely is not. “You may not be so fucking bold. In fact, how fucking dare you.” He crushes a recently empty can of Red Bull in his fist, chucks it across the room. “You’ve got the spine of—of one of those fucking sea creatures, deep-sea white fucking blobs of goo, and yet you dare question this department?”

“Deep-sea—what?”

“This order comes all the way from the top, so you had better fall in line.”

“The PM wants this spiked?”

For fuck’s sake. “ _Malcolm_.” He says the name, and Glenn’s breath hitches. “Malcolm wants this spiked, which means that the PM does, too. The entirety of Great Britain and Northern Ireland wants this spiked, and yet you’re fucking questioning me.”

“All right, all right.” Glenn’s picking through his public school vowels like he’s afraid he’ll drop one. “To be honest, Jamie, I don’t know how much use I can be. I knew that Stewart had, well, inclinations, but I always thought that a _good_ thing for us. He is the opposition, after all.”

“You knew?” Jamie slams his fist on the desk in lieu of slamming it into Glenn’s fucking vapid mug. “You fucking knew, and you just fucking sat on it like a fat pig on a turd? You’ve not only got the spine of one of those blobs of goo, you’ve got the fucking brains of it as well. You’ve got information like that, you fucking share it, like the good little soldier that you are!”

“I thought everyone knew! It’s quite obvious, Jamie, have you met the man?”

He has, and he can’t deny that there’s a truth to what Glenn’s saying. But— “That is beside the fucking point. You knew, and you let the _Mail_ fucking blindside us. We won’t forget this, you prick. You’d better watch your back.”

“For Christ’s sake, Jamie. No matter what Ollie says, the Department for Communication and Strategy is not, in fact, the mafia.”

Jamie snorts. “That’s what _you_ think.”

\------

“I know you’re not asking me, but if you were to ask me, I could make a suggestion of whom to talk to.”

Jamie’s headed back to Number Ten after fruitlessly ransacking Richmond Terrace. There’s fucking _nothing_ on Heaney, it’s like she’s the fucking Virgin Mary—except worse; the Virgin Mary at least got pregnant out of wedlock. Pocketing his phone after a frantic call from Malcolm (who’s already in a right state of panic; Jamie really hopes they’ll be able to sort this quickly), he’s passing the smokers’ corner when he hears Terri Coverly’s voice slither out like a snake in high grass. He stops.

“How do you even fucking know what I’m after?”

“Well, you haven’t been particularly subtle about it.” She steps out of the doorway, plump fingers clasped around a menthol. “All that shouting, I think the FCO down the street knows what you’re after. Neil Armstrong on the moon probably knows.”

“You know he’s not still up there, right?”

“Oh, whatever.” She ashes her fag and flips up her collar like she’s Deep fucking Throat. “Do you want to know, then, or don’t you?”

“Yeah, all right, out with it. Haven’t got all day, have I?”

Her nose crinkles. “I think you should speak to Adam Kenyon.”

It’s like he’s supposed to know who the fuck that is. She rolls her eyes. “He used to be with the _Mail_. Not too tall, face like a Debenhams pants model. Covered the whole Tom-wobble-cock-up back in ’07, remember?”

“Do I fucking remember.” The only insult worse than that would’ve been if she’d asked him if he supports the Rangers. “What the fuck is Adam going to tell me? I don’t know if you know how this works, being your department’s communications expert and all, but as Adam’s with the _Mail_ , and the _Mail_ are the ones we’re trying to shaft, it’s very fucking unlikely he’s going to hand me the shotgun, right?”

“You’re not a very active listener, Jamie. We had a seminar on active listening about a month ago; perhaps you should’ve attended. They had some really quite useful tips about—”

He snatches the fag out of her fingers, holds it up in front of her face. “You see this?” She’s staring, eyes as wide as a deer’s staring down an _Asda_ delivery lorry. He squeezes the fag, tobacco crumbling. “These are your vocal cords, all right, and this is what I’m going to fucking do to them if you don’t start talking sense.” He tears off the top half, crushes it in his fist, feels the sting of the glowing tip against his palm. “Tear them right out of your throat, and then make sure your disability pension’s suspended for obstruction of government operations, you massive fucking—”

“He’s not with the _Mail_ anymore!” She puffs a consternated breath, takes a step back and shakes another menthol out of the box. “For goodness’ sake, Jamie, does Number Ten keep track of anything that’s happening, or are you all too busy examining each other’s rectums for polyps? Adam left the _Mail_ to do press strategy for Nick’s gang of increasing numbers.”

Jesus Christ. “He’s with _those_ spineless wankers?”

“Well, he did use to be with the _Mail_.”

Point taken. Jamie drops the pieces of broken cigarette, starts digging for his phone. “You breathe a word of this to anyone, I’m coming after you and every single one of your twenty-five fucking cats, you hear me?”

“Yes, Jamie, I hear you.” She sucks in a lungful of nicotine, arches a perfectly pencilled eyebrow. “However, I haven’t got any cats. I’m really more of a dog person.”

\------

“Are you sure his information’s solid?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to know, Malc?” They’re in a taxi, hurtling down a busy London street towards the Westminster ghetto where Nick’s gang have got their headquarters. Malcolm’s got his arms crossed so tightly Jamie worries he’s going to break a wrist. “All I know is that he’s got something. He did use to work with her. If we’re lucky, he’s got some tittie pictures.”

“You’ve got fucking tittie pictures of everyone you work with?”

“Not everyone.” He smirks across the taxi’s backseat. “Just you.”

Malcolm snarls. “Oh, fuck off.” 

The taxi swerves up to the curb, shudders to a halt as the meter jingles. “Ten fifty.”

Jamie’s never been in opposition, but if this is what your headquarters look like when you are, he’d rather be split from navel to throat by a pissed samurai with a blunt fucking sword. Dirt-grey carpeting expands between once-white walls, and the chairs in the seating area look like they were nicked from an A&E charity donation pile. Adam’s on his own in an office so crammed full of shelves it looks like a South London council’s attempt to make the most of their public library. As he sees them, his smooth babyface distorts in horror.

“What are you doing here?” He gets up, squeezes past a stack of boxes to come around his desk. “You can’t just walk in here, these are opposition offices—”

“Sit the fuck down.” Malcolm’s command is followed by Jamie shoving a nearby chair into the back of Adam’s knees. “We’re here to talk.”

“I don’t have to talk to you. I’m not a member of your party, you have no—”

Jamie twists the desk lamp, shines bright light into Adam’s face. Adam cringes, and Jamie thinks that Terri’s right—he does look like a Debenhams pants model. “Shut your gob, you fucking stain on the integrity of Britain’s democracy. This is a super-partisan matter.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Malcolm perches on the desk, crinkling under his skinny arse a folder labelled _The School and I—Planning the Future of Britain’s Education System_. His eyes are the colour of the sky during the Great Storm of ‘87.

“We’re here about a former colleague of yours.” Malcolm picks up a plastic figurine from the desk. It’s wearing a spandex suit and a cape. Fuck him if that’s not a fucking superhero action figure. “Angela Heaney. You used to work with her at the _Mail_.”

“Yes. I did. What about her?”

“It’s come to our attention that she’s planning to run a story that we don’t want to run. In fact, we are so fucking invested in this story not running that we spent all morning tearing up Whitehall to find a way to stop her. Imagine where that inquiry led us.”

Adam makes a face like he’s been asked to explain the extended rules of cricket.

“For fuck’s sake.” Jamie grabs Adam’s chair and leans in. “To you, you massive dimwit. It’s led us to you.”

“What have I got to do with it? I’m not even with the _Mail_ anymore!”

Malcolm’s expression degenerates into a mixture of disgust and resignation. “You should be in a fucking museum.” He spreads his hands. “Exhibit fucking A documenting the downfall of a once-great nation. You’re living testament to the vapid stupidity filling the current political vacuum.”

“Oh, is that right? Well, you are Exhibit fucking A documenting the dinosaurs who should’ve left Whitehall when the meteor struck.” There’s a bit of fire in Adam’s voice now. “Tell me what you want or get the fuck out. Unlike you, I have work to do.”

“We want dirt on Angela Heaney.” With subjects as challenged as Adam, in Jamie’s experience it’s best to get straight to the point. “Something big enough to blow her story right out of the fucking water. Something that’ll shut her up on this for good.”

“And what, pray tell, is ‘this’?”

That’s a bit of a sticky matter. Strategic calls on who gets to know what are not Jamie’s department. Malcolm, however, seems to have decided that it doesn’t matter who knows, as long as it stays out of print. “She’s running a story on Stewart Pearson,” he says. He’s still holding the action figure, and bends its legs apart to expose a smooth plastic crotch. “Looks like he’s got a special friend among the Shadow Cabinet staffers. Looks like Angela thinks the public needs to know.”

Adam’s eyes are fixed on the spot between the action figure’s legs. He looks both disgusted and intrigued. “And you, um. You don’t?”

“Of course I fucking don’t.” Malcolm bares his teeth, drops the plastic man on the desk where it stays, spandexed arse sticking up in the air. “We don’t need this, Adam. Today it’s a spread on Pearson, tomorrow it’s one on the PM. Or your fearless leader Nick. Or _you_.” He points a finger at the action figure. “That thing’s proof enough that you’ve bent the wrong way at least on occasion. Give us _something_ , or I’m packing it up and mailing it to your former employer.”

“Jesus, Malcolm. That is so reactionary.”

Jamie jerks on the chair’s backrest, gives Adam a jump. “We are talking about the fucking _Mail_ , you moron. They don’t need anything more to call you a poof. They’d do that if I sent them a picture of your face, you fucking moisturised, clean-shaven, Hugo-Boss-wearing cunt.”

“Okay!” Adam wets his lips. “Okay, yes, fair point. I think I’ve got something for you. But you have to promise you won’t use it for anything else.”

Malcolm’s lips pull back to his molars in what’s probably meant to be a smile. “Scout’s honour.”

Jamie knows for a fact that Malcolm’s never been a scout.

\------

“Who even let you in?”

“I’m the sitting Director of Communication and Strategy. Do you think there’s _any_ newspaper building that I can’t get into?”

It’s a bit of an embellishment, as Jamie knows that the only reason Malcolm and he got past the _Mail_ reception as smoothly as they did is because the reception lady had gone out back to grab a smoke. But a solid embellishment goes a long way towards establishing a reputation, and a reputation gets you past most reception desks, so perhaps there’s some truth to it.

“That’s abuse of power.” Angela pulls out her notebook, poises a pen. “You’re the worst of them all, Malcolm, I cannot believe you still haven’t been ousted—”

“How about we take this somewhere a bit more fucking private.” He herds her into an empty glass box adjacent to the news room, and Jamie makes sure to lock the door.

Angela throws him a glare that would do Medusa proud. “What are you doing that for? Are you going to torture me into submission? You do realise that the walls are transparent, right?”

“Nobody’s torturing anyone. _Yet_.” Malcolm grabs a chair, sits down and crosses his legs before he indicates the only other chair in the room. “Please, Angela, take a seat.”

Jamie holds his position next to the door, feet apart and arms crossed, as Angela follows Malcolm’s request. “I know why you’re here.” She points her pen at Malcolm. “If you think you’re going to bully me into pulling this story, think again. I’m not Adam. Your posturing does not impress me.”

“Oh, I know.” Malcolm’s got that look, the one that he gets when he’s gearing up to deal the final blow. “But you know who’s still quite impressed by it? Adam is. Your former colleague was still really fucking impressed when I told him to toe the line lest I disembowel him with my 1979 University of Edinburgh graduation class letter opener.”

“Jesus, Malcolm. What’s Adam got to do with all of this?”

Malcolm reaches inside his jacket, pulls out the envelope that Adam’s shaking fingers had handed over not half an hour earlier. “Nothing,” he says. “Nothing at all, except for how he, too, attended last year’s Christmas party at the _Mail_. Isn’t it touching how he kept all those pictures even after he went and fucking betrayed you for the brighter shores of politics?”

Angela’s gone quiet, her lips a thin line splitting her face in half. She fishes three glossy photographs from the envelope, stares at them in disbelief. “You massive fucking degenerate wanker.” She’s barely audible, but from what Jamie _can_ hear, she’s ready to commit first-degree homicide. “You think this is the same as a high-ranking party official cherry-picking young men—”

“That is _not_ what he’s fucking doing.” Angela may be ready to kill, but Malcolm sounds ready to dismember her alive. “Fucking hyenas, you’re so quick to go for any red-hot catchphrase that suits your purpose. What exactly have you got on this?”

“I’ve got reliable sources telling me he regularly takes a staffer seven years his junior to dinner at Somerset House. They’ve been seen holding hands.”

Malcolm stares at her. “That’s it?” He waves a hand. “Have you got pictures? Photographic evidence of him leering at twenty-year-old foetus men stumbling around Parliament in their school ties?”

“I don’t—”

“Perhaps he’s taken one of _them_ to dinner? You realise that seven years junior to Stewart Pearson puts your cherry-picked fucking young man in the fourth decade of his innocent, young life, right?”

There’s a bit of a panicked glint in Angela’s eyes. “I don’t need to justify to you my choices in—”

“You need to shut up and spike this story.” Malcolm gets up, leans forward to tower over Angela like a fucking news media gargoyle of death. “Spike it, and these photos will go into my combination safe with all the other documents of dirt, dreck, and depravity that I’m holding over various members of this government to keep us from fucking drowning in filth. Run with it, and these will find their way to the _Mirror_ , the _Star_ , the _Express_. Even the fucking _Sun_. I can see the headline now: Lesbo Reporter Fucks Opposition Staffer, Don’t Buy the Fucking _Mail_ Because It’s Being Written by a Muff Diver. They’ll smooth it out a bit, I’m sure, but you get the gist.”

Jamie’s not sure he’s ever seen anyone as mad as Angela is right now. He half expects her to shove her pen into the pulsing vein in Malcolm’s neck, but all she does is push her chair back, spring to her feet. “You shameless fucking pig. Why the fuck do you even care? Stewart’s the opposition, right? So is Emma, come to think of it.” She waves a hand at the photos, which show her in lip-lock with cute, blonde, strait-laced Emma Messinger. “I’d be doing you a fucking favour.”

“Right,” Malcolm nods, collects the photos to tuck them back in the envelope. “Right, because homosexuality, that’s purely an opposition problem. Those ten percent all the studies keep talking about, they’re all fucking part of the _other_ team, right?”

Angela looks confused, and Malcolm rolls his eyes. “Once this avalanche starts coming, it’s a fucking free-for-all. We’ll all be on the chopping block, your team included.”

“I think you’re underestimating the integrity of the British press.”

Of all the ridiculous things Jamie’s heard all day, that one takes the cake. He starts laughing, and he doesn’t stop till they’re out of the building and hailing a taxi. When he suggests they should send Angela a copy of the _Sun_ covering George Michael’s arrest in ‘98, Malcolm throws him a dark look and tells him not to fucking tempt fate.

\------

Jamie’s alarm goes off the next morning, and the first thing he does is grab his phone. He pulls up the newsfeed, checks the _Mail_ headline. It’s something or other about BNP protests—either for or against, he’ll find out later when he reads it. Padding to the bathroom, he scrolls through the rest of the headlines, but there’s nothing about Stewart Pearson and his hot little date.

Good. Crisis averted.

He grabs the knob of the bathroom door, but it won’t turn. There’s the sound of the shower from inside. “For fuck’s sake.” He bangs against the door. “How many times? Fucking leave it open. There’s not enough time for both of us to get a full twenty minutes in the bathroom.”

He’s ignored, as expected, so he makes his way into the kitchen. He’s halfway through a bowl of cereal when bare feet on linoleum announce the arrival of the bathroom occupant.

“I’ll be late now.”

“Better get a fucking note for your boss.”

Jamie waves an up-yours over his shoulder. “Seen the news?”

“What, in the fucking shower?”

“She didn’t run with it.” He pulls up the feed on his phone, holds it up. Malcolm squints as he comes over, puts his coffee on the table as he takes the phone from him.

“Fucking BNP. Just pulled that one out of her arse, did she? She’s always been good on the fly, got to give her that.”

They sit in silence for a while, let the caffeine do its magic. Jamie cleans out his bowl, pours himself another cup, before he leans back and levels Malcolm with narrowed eyes. “We’ve got to be more careful, do you think?”

“What, for Heaney?”

“She seemed pretty fucking mad. She might go digging.”

Malcolm shrugs. “We’ve got her. Adam had no fucking idea what he was giving away. She’s part of the shit club now. She kicks this loose, she’ll get buried, too. She’s smart enough to know that.”

“Mad enough to forget it, perhaps.”

“Would you?”

Of course not. He concedes with a nod, pushes off the table and gets to his feet. “If you used up all the hot water, I’ll fucking eviscerate you and shower in your blood.”

“I’m not an expert, but that might put you on the front page in a bad way.”

“Nah.” He snorts. “It’s the fucking tabloids, they’d love it.”

Malcolm’s silence follows him to the bathroom. Jamie supposes it’s still too soon for jokes about the callousness of the British press, this latest surge of adrenaline still too fresh in Malcolm’s veins.

As he climbs into the shower, he wonders if he’s dreading or yearning for the day it’ll all go tits-up. When it does, perhaps they’ll make a film about it. _Philadelphia Circus_ , fucking _Brokeback Whitehall_. Splash it all over the big screen, end the sneaking around once and for all.

He kind of hopes he’ll be there to see it.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic is a [real headline](https://78.media.tumblr.com/70e39864590f4a1e7d73b037f375ea03/tumblr_p13q2zdJd71uosyxuo1_400.jpg) the Sun used to cover [George Michael's arrest in 1998](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Michael#Arrests).


End file.
